command seven | adultery

Jesus re-taught the 10 commands and the law in His Sermon on the Mount

in it, murder was expanded to include anger

to be perfectly obedient, our deeds AND what is going on internally, matter

consequences may be different; societal laws may treat things differently,

but God demands past, present and future perfection, externally and internally

the law is ruthless, heavy, and unbearable

it is designed to crush the self-righteousness that resides within us

it is designed to crush us and leave us looking for someone else’s righteousness

one way to sum up Christianity is simply, “Help!”

the ultimate “cry uncle”

we are all trying to benchpress 1,200 lbs

we ask for a spot

the bar touches our chest in about .0002 seconds and crushes us, leaving us hopeless and helpless

Jesus also expands adultery to include lust

Friday, I called us all mass murderers,

we can also add to our bio, serial adulterers

God uses this exact language in Hosea (one of those little books at the end of your Old Testament, where your pages are still stuck together)

God has His prophet, Hosea, marry a woman of the World’s oldest profession, Gomer

God tells Hosea to marry her, and that she would continue to cheat on him, but he was to remain faithful

Hosea did it, Gomer kept doing it

God wanted his people to see and know that any unfaithfulness to God, anytime we sin, we have cheated on God. “Though we remain faithless, God remains faithful”.

God marries Himself to unfaithful people. Like Hosea, He remains faithful when we are faithless

Every time we look for our deepest needs, approval, acceptance, control, validation, identity in a lessor god than God, we commit adultery

serial adulterers are we

thankfully, everywhere we are faithless, Jesus remained faithful

in a wilderness, Jesus was tempted by lesser gods

offered all the power in the World, offered the chance to take matters into His own hands to meet a need like hunger, and Jesus said no to every smaller god, trusting His Father God

because it was said of Jesus, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”, we get to hear, now, “Well done good and faithful servant”

the sins we cannot forget, God cannot remember, because of Jesus

Jesus is the Hero!

God loves and is faithful to an adulteress like me!, because of Jesus

For those “In Christ” you are currently and eternally robed in Christ’s righteousness.

“May the accuser roar

of sins I have done

I know them well and thousands more

My God, He knowth none”

Regardless of what we do, and the potentially horrible consequences that follow,

God is NEVER tempted to leave us or forsake us

Grindforth!…robed in the perfect righteousness of another!

“The sin beneath all sins is the lie that we cannot trust the love and grace of Jesus and must take matters into our own hands.” Marty Luther